Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest academic honor society in the United States, has voted to establish a chapter at Texas State University.
Phi Beta Kappa celebrates and advocates for excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. Its campus chapters invite for induction the most outstanding arts and sciences students at America’s leading colleges and universities.
TXST is only the fifth public university in the state to receive a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa since the society’s founding in 1776. The chapter will be named Nu of Texas. Installation and the first initiation of members will occur in spring 2025 with a date to be announced soon.
Phi Beta Kappa members on the TXST faculty began efforts to establish a TXST chapter in early 2022, including completion of an application, with information about the library, facilities, athletics and the university’s financial health. After a rigorous review, a team of six external faculty members made a site visit over three days in February 2023. The site visit team met with the president, provost, deans, faculty, students and staff from across the university.
Catherine Jaffe, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor in the Department of World Languages and Literature, and Heather Galloway, Ph.D., dean of the Honors College, served as application co-chairs. Other committee members included William Kelemen, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Psychology, Ron Haas, Ph.D., professor of instruction in the Honors College, and Louie Dean Valencia, Ph.D., NEH distinguished professor in the humanities.
The Phi Beta Kappa Society is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. It has chapters at more than 290 colleges and universities in the U.S., nearly 50 alumni associations and more than half a million members worldwide. Noteworthy members include 17 U.S. presidents, 42 U.S. supreme court justices and more than 150 Nobel laureates. The society’s mission is to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, foster freedom of thought and recognize academic excellence.
For more information, visit www.pbk.org/new-chapters-2024.